19 New Works Of Art That Have The World Buzzing

A great piece of art can get the world talking, and create a lasting impression that people continue to buzz about for years to come.

We asked art experts, like the folks from Artsy, to select the most talked-about works of art from galleries, auction houses, or art shows within the last year or so.

From paintings to sculptures to bizarre and possibly illegal installations, these 19 works of art had the world buzzing this year.Actress Tilda Swinton partook in a piece of performance art called "The Maybe," when she slept in a glass box at New York's Museum of Modern Art last March. Swinton would appear at various times and places throughout the museum.

Jay-Z's "Picasso Baby" is a 10-minute music video that should be considered a piece of performance art. Inspired by Marina Abramovic's 2010 installation "The Artist Is Present," director Mark Romanek shot over 30 hours of footage showing Jay-Z rapping his song over and over again at Chelsea's Pace Gallery in July. The film premiered on HBO in August, and is now permanently viewable on YouTube.

For 81 days in 2011 controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by security forces for alleged "tax evasion." His imprisonment became the subject of his latest work, "S.A.C.R.E.D.," which showed how he lived during those 81 days, and was on display at the Venice Biennale in May. It is on display again in Brooklyn, N.Y., until August 10.

Page 2 of 5 - "Rain Room," an interactive exhibit by artistic collaborative rAandom International that allowed visitors to walk through a room without getting wet, drew long lines to both the Barbican in London and then the MoMA in New York over the summer.

British street artist Banksy, known for his statement graffiti works as much as his anonymity, completed a month-long "residency" in New York City in October. His works — a different one every day — were the talk of the town. Even though he left clues on his website as to where the next day's piece would be, each one was a surprise until spotted.

It took British designer Alex Chinneck an entire year to create his sloping, four-story brick building facade in Margate, England, which he calls "From the Knees of My Nose to the Belly of My Toes." The dilapidated building he used had been abandoned for 11 years, and is now a playful and eye-catching stab at a new kind of architecture. It's on view for the next year until the building is set to be demolished.

As a part of the 2014 Whitney Biennial, American artists Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst collaborated on a collection of photographs called "Relationship," which aims to give the viewer an intimate glimpse into their relationship as a transgender couple. The series is on display at the Whitney Museum through May 25.

Chicago-based artist Nick Cave had the Big Apple talking last March with a magnificent display of dancing colorful, dyed raffia horse sculptures, called "Heard NY." Dancers climbed inside the sculptures twice a day for a twenty-minute performance inside the middle of New York City's bustling Grand Central Station.

The giant, inflatable duck simply known as "Rubber Duck" is the work of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman who first created the piece in 2007 to have it visit different port cities around the world. The duck made one or two stops per year from 2007 to 2012, but started touring full-force in 2013, and made its most recent stop in Parramatta, Australia, in January.

After years of trial and error, Li Hongbo has come up with a an art form that consists of layering thousands of sheets of paper and carving them into busts, replicas of nature, and human forms. His sculptures are unlike any others in that they're stretchable and bendable, not solid. They're currently on view at Klein Sun Gallery in New York.

In December, American artist Jeff Koons unveiled a painted BMW M3 GT2 race car at Art Basel Miami Beach. The "Art Car" is a colorful, spectacular reincarnation of the BMW M1 he painted that raced in the 24-hour race at Le Mans in 1979. The car now resides with a collector, according to Complex.

Brooklyn-based artist duo FAILE, known for their street art-like murals and installations, created an original work for the New York City Ballet called "Les Ballets de FAILE." The installation, which is displayed in front of New York's Lincoln Center, consists of two separate pieces, including a 40-foot-tall graffiti-laden tower paying tribute to the ballet.

Yayoi Kusama's whimsical "I Who Have Arrived In Heaven" exhibit, which ran at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York in November and December, used selfies as a marketing tool, as word of the exhibit spread through photos posted to Instagram.

Abraham Poincheval is a French artist who has spent most of the month of April living inside a hollowed-out bear stomach. His unique art form is a part of an interactive exhibition on display now at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, in which Poincheval is testing his physical limits with little food, water, or space.

Clive van den Berg used the mapping techniques of prospectors and archaeologists to create "Occular Ghost" (2013). Van den Berg painted the abstract as a means of translating the South African landscape onto canvas. It was on view this past fall at the Goodman Gallery in New York as a part of his exhibit, "Land Throws Up A Ghost."

Chinese artist Zhao Zhao's glass and stainless steel "Constellation" series is a commentary on China's heavy restrictions on civilian firearms. Like his mentor Ai Wei Wei, Zhao Zhao has also been known to provoke authority and has been arrested for it. He featured these works at last year's Art Basel Hong Kong.

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Courtesy of the artist and Chambers Fine ArtViewable on Artsy.net

Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada used of 2,000 tons of sand, 2,000 tons of soil, and about 30,000 wooden pegs to create the face of an anonymous six-year-old local Belfast girl on an 11-acre piece of land art in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Entitled "Wish," the work took 18 months to complete.

Former President George W. Bush took up painting as a hobby when he left office, namely painting people. His portraits of world leaders are on display at "The Art of Leadership: A President's Personal Diplomacy," an exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Tex.

In December, George Zimmerman, the Florida man found not guilty of murder in the Trayvon Martin case, proved he could make a career as an artist when he sold a blue, latex painting of the American flag with some text from the Pledge of Allegiance for $100,099.99 on eBay.